Page 38 of You Chive Me Crazy
I was about to put Damian in his place, but Zoe beat me to the punch, picking up her fork and pointing it in his direction. “You know what, Damian? You're just a jealous jerk because Lucas won that prestigious critic’s award over you and then got the job you wanted. Take your epic failure like a man and shut your trap. Lucas is a thousand times the food critic you will ever be. End of story.”
Whoa—that was unexpected.
Zoe was defending me?
Where had that come from?
I must have been dreaming.
The dining room was completely silent until Zoe went for one more round of knocking Damian down a notch.
“And furthermore—you’re a hack who doesn’t have an ounce of creativity,” she continued. “All you do is complain and criticize because you’re so unhappy with your pathetic life. You’re a passionless, neutral, run-of-the-mill, cookie-cutter food critic, who will be forgotten in no time. It must really suck being you.”
Damian's face contorted with anger, and I could see the fury in his eyes.
He opened his mouth to respond, but Zoe shook a finger at him. “Stuff a sock in it. I don’t want to hear another word from you.” She stood up from the table, her chair scraping loudly against the wooden floor as she turned to Marty and Betsy. “Thank you very much for an absolutely wonderful breakfast. Please excuse me. I need to go rest my head for a little while.”
Zoe stormed out of the dining room, a stunned silence filling the air.
Well, except for the bird.
Alexa squawked. “Everybody was kung fu fighting.”
I sat there, speechless, marveling at what I had just witnessed from Zoe.
Could she possibly have forgiven me?
Was she going to give me a second chance?
There was only one way to find out . . .
ChapterEight
ZOE
I scurried up to the Love Shack, my heart pounding in my chest. Closing the door softly behind me, I leaned against it, deep in thought.
That had to be the most irritating and awkward breakfast of my entire life. I admired Lucas for his patience and self-control while being provoked mercilessly by Damian. Whatever had possessed the man to be so mean?
Damian was an absolute turd.
Lucas was . . . well, honestly, my thoughts about him were all over the place at the moment, and they continued to change by the minute. Especially after learning what he had done for me, traveling to the two culinary schools and begging them to let me attend, after they’d both rejected my applications.
I thought I knew Lucas. After all, we had spent two years together. I knew I had feelings for him but it would have been awkward for me to act on them since we had to work so closely together as partners at the culinary institute. He’d always been so easily annoyed with obnoxious people. I could always tell he was losing it when he poked the inside of his cheek with his tongue. Since I’d spent these last couple of days with him, I had barely seen that. He’d matured so much and I could see he was constantly working to be a better man.
And to think I assumed he was a self-serving oaf after the culinary school debacle! How could I have been wrong about him? Loathing him had felt comfortable and deserved all these years. So much for thinking it had been completely justified.
I was wrong.
And now, the man who had been sending shockwaves of conflicting emotions through my body was surely well on his way up to the room at that very moment. A conversation with him in my current frazzled state-of-mind was not a good idea. How could I avoid it when I had no place to go? I could hide out in the bathroom for only so long without making the situation even more awkward than it already was.
Luckily, staring at the bed, I came up with the perfect plan.
I would pretend to be asleep.
After all, he’d encouraged me to rest during my recovery.
Mature behavior, I know, but I needed time to process my thoughts before opening my mouth.
